


The Sins You Never Had The Courage To Commit

by tbhyourelame



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Literature, M/M, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, Past Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Summer Vacation, Teddy is a Sweetheart, harry is a dad, mentioned Remus Lupin & Nymphadora Tonks, mentions of Wizarding War, prepare for sadness, the picture of dorian gray - Freeform, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 19:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18483259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tbhyourelame/pseuds/tbhyourelame
Summary: During a warm summer of Teddy Lupin's late teenage years, he stumbles upon an enchanted book that once belonged to his deceased father. Urged by his godfather Harry to read the story, Teddy finds himself wrapped in a world of secrets and sins he never knew existed."How’s it coming along?” Harry’s voice startled him, and Teddy's turned to see him leaning against the screen door. Harry’s eyes were focused on the far horizon, the swaying willow trees and wildflower fields.“There’s someone else’s writing in here,” Teddy said carefully, “besides my father’s.”





	The Sins You Never Had The Courage To Commit

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a quick link to a summary of The Picture of Dorian Gray, if needed!
> 
> https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Picture-of-Dorian-Gray-novel-by-Wilde
> 
> The magical properties of the book are as follows:  
> 1\. Whatever is physically altered in one book is altered in the other.  
> 2\. All books are charmed to resist grease, water, and blood stains.  
> 3\. One must say " _in libris libertas_ " to effectively write in a book.  
> 4\. All writing disappears if tapped with a wand three times.

On a quiet, warm night of June, underneath a faded purple sky, a young boy’s fingertips gently brushed over the spines of dusty books, whose titles had long been washed away by time. One book in particular was more worn down than the others, it’s cover creased and flimsy, looking quite shabby next to the other novels on the cedar shelves. The boy’s hand stopped when he reached the book, pulling it away from the shelf with extreme care, thumb brushing the dust away from the now tainted title. In delicate writing, the words _picture_ and _Dorian Gray_ were faintly inscribed on the leather cover. Outside, fireflies gleamed in the humid air, drifting underneath the stars without a worry. The world was at peace, and as the boy lowered himself onto the floor by the fireplace, he stared at the book with a nostalgic feeling joining in with the chorus of his heartbeat.

“That was one of your father’s favorites,” a soft voice said from the doorway, and the boy’s eyes raised to meet his godfather. “He adored Oscar Wilde.”

“I’ve noticed,” the boy said, voice lightly tinged with amusement as he gestured to the section of books marked _O.W_. on the shelf above. Yet still a subtle sadness resided beneath his words, and his eyes fell heavily back to the novel in his careful grip.

“He’d be happy for you, Ted,” Harry said suddenly, taking a seat on the floral couch in front of him. Teddy drew in a breath, letting his lungs fill with the integrity and quiet happiness of the moment, keeping his eyes locked on the old book in his hands.

“I wish I knew him as you did,” was all he confessed, and Harry nodded slightly.

“He was a good man, and I’m proud to have called him family,” his lips easily passed over the words he had repeated countless times before. But this time he paused, adding, “though I often wish I’d known him better, too.”

Teddy fell silent. He opened the book timidly, faltering at the sight of something etched in familiar writing on the inside. It read:

 

**_To Remus J. Lupin,_ **

**_For when reality takes a turn for the worst_ ** **.**

**_Love_ ** **,** —

 

The name had been scratched out multiple times with graphite, so forceful it was engraved into the paper.

“Who do you think knew him? Truly, really knew him?” Teddy asked, thumb feeling the grooves of the etched out name.

“Besides your mother?” Harry carried on when Teddy nodded, not missing a beat, “Sirius Black.”

He knew of that name. It was rarely brought up in hushed tones between the adults underneath flickering kitchen lights while the children were sleeping away. It was scribbled onto the backs of faded pictures, preserved in glass frames, clustered in old paper stacks and antique boxes. He’d been told stories about him, learning that the man had been accused of murder and betrayal. Harry had shook his head when Teddy asked if it was at all true, noting the way his godfather stiffly said the name _Pettigrew_ alongside other defending arguments. He had learned that Sirius Black had a flying motorbike, the one that sat underneath a dirty sheet in the Potter’s garage. Apparently, he was once a dashing young lad, vivacious and rebellious, a _Marauder,_ like Teddy’s own father. He knew all about those four, loved to hear of their stories, and was shamelessly fond of the trouble they raised.

Harry loved Sirius without a doubt. Anyone could tell by the way he spoke of him. Yet he rarely did, unless asked to, because there was a depressing, heavy sadness that hung from his words when pressed on such topics. He bore sorrows some would never understand in their lifetime, Teddy sensed that much. And whenever the topic of Remus and Sirius came about, Harry would fall silent, eyes revealing that he knew more than he was willing to say.

But in that moment, in the silence of the crackling fire, the smell of s'mores from the outside pit, and their warm family’s laughter drifting in through the ajar door, Teddy dared to ask again.

“I’ve never understood why...” he said his words carefully, eyes flitting across Harry’s face, “...why Sirius meant so much to him.”

For once, Harry’s face did not still like it usually would at such a question. There was a light that added to his eyes, and the corners of his mouth tugged upwards. It was happiness that displayed cross his features, no doubt, but a different kind of it. _A sad happiness_ , Teddy decided silently, _a peaceful, content, melancholy happiness._ A small smile fought its way onto his face, and he simply pointed towards the book in Teddy’s hands.

“It’s a brilliant book, you know. It speaks of youth and monsters, souls and sins. And most especially, of love. Wilde had quite a way with words. Your father did, too.”

Teddy’s mouth opened in exasperation, having grown sick of the cryptic dance of conversations like so. Harry simply raised his hand, cutting him off lightly.

“Read it, Ted,” he urged, not breaking eye contact with him when Lily burst through the door, crying over the horrors of combining marshmallows and tangled hair. “You’d be surprised of what he has to say.”

Then he scooped Lily up into his arms moments before she crashed into him, laughing softly as she showed him the mess in her hair, wiping away the angry tears that were clinging to her cheeks. Teddy watched the fond exchange for a moment, but then his eyes fell back down to the book. He glanced at the writing again, then shut it carefully.

The book would come to sit upon his bedside table for nearly two weeks, being faintly remembered but not forgotten among the midst of high tides and summer joys. Faint dew mornings consisted of mint tea and burned pancakes, birds chirping from the fog-hidden trees, hazardous fights over maple syrup, fuzzy socks sliding across briefly swept floors, playlists with songs that had long been out of style, and not-so-discreet hangover cures being stored high away from curious, grabby fingers. By the time noon rolled onto the clocks, sunscreen bottles lay on the patio with the caps gone astray, the backyard grass trampled by many heated games of wiffle ball, remains of triumphant chess games sitting next to empty glasses that needed to be brought to the vibrant, buzzing kitchen where soap suds flew about the air. Nightfall was always warm, crickets heard in the underbrush of the woods nearby, clinking silverware on dinner plates often turning into a terribly lovely rhythm, voices dropping to murmurs as the children finally fell asleep, cozied in wool blankets to the sound of embers flickering out.

It was those days that Teddy felt an overwhelming appreciation for the family he had grown to love and care about, as they did of him, because deep down, he didn’t miss his real parents, he never knew them, and they weren’t real family. Strangers, almost, but since they were such a big part of the lives of those whom he cared for, he had a growing curiosity and sadness of what had been lost—but almost never there in the first place.

He enjoyed monitoring the Potter’s children, even if the Weasley's did add to the rambunctious nature of it all, because it was still summer, he was still in his youth and free of too many worries. He was glad to have Harry in his life, to have so many people who adored him just the same. Teddy was no stranger to realizing the luckiness of his life, how it ended up so well after the years of horrors that loomed quietly in the shadows of the adults’ minds.

So he told himself, while sitting in a swaying chair on the front porch, overlooking Hermione and James as she showed him how to make flowers bloom, that he would read the book for his father, for the man who sacrificed his own life of potential happiness in order for Teddy to grow up in a serene world, free of the terrors that had haunted his own.

And while he read, he began to grow fond of the underlines and dog-eared pages, the circling of words and writing in the margins. The story unfolded before his eyes, and although he had only heard his father speak in Harry’s memories from the pensieve, it was as if Remus was narrating it, trailing lightly and treading heavily on certain words and quotes, because it was _his_ book, it really was, and Teddy almost felt as if he was finally getting to know the silent ghost of his life.

A few chapters into the book, he stumbled across something else written in the top right margin, nearly covered by the folded down for corner.

 

_Please - stop dog-earing the pages, you git._

Then, in the same writing from the front of the book, it said:

**_No. Woof-woof, nerd._ **

 

Teddy smiled, but then faltered, flipping back towards the writing in the front. Whom did the other writing belong to? And why was the name scratched out? He kept on reading, trying to focus on the plot, but he came across _more_ odd little snippets of writing.

 

**_Do you think he really loved Sibyl Vane_ ** **?**

And then, in what Teddy recognized as his father’s writing:

_No. He loved the idea of her._

**_I disagree. He did love her, not for who she was, but for what she pretended to be._ **

 

“How’s it coming along?” Harry’s voice startled Teddy, and his eyes rose to see him leaning against the screen door, face painted with a quiet happiness at the sight of Hermione playing with his son in the yard. He turned his head towards Teddy.

“There’s someone else’s writing in here,” he said carefully, “besides my father’s.”

 

**_Henry is a metaphor for the devil, isn’t he?_**  

_That or he’s just a faffing wanker._

**_Language, Re._ **

 

Harry nodded slightly. His eyes seemed to be glimmering when he said through a subtle smile, “you’ll understand when you keep reading.”

 

**_Basil Hallward was a sad man. He poured too much into his art to really recognize what he was painting for._ **

_All art is quite useless._

 

“You’re quite cryptic,” Teddy said, more to himself, but Harry laughed anyway.

“A bad habit, I suppose,” he said with a soft smile, something that seemed more nostalgic than happy. They sat there quietly for a couple of heartbeats, Teddy’s eyes falling over the pages with a level of focus he could only have while reading, Harry’s eyes cast out far towards the horizon, towards the swaying willow trees and wildflower fields.

The summer cottage was located in a fairly remote area, the nearest town a rough hour and a half drive away. A calm lake gently hugged the pebble-shores in their backyard, dragonflies humming about the cool surface, the sunrise always dragging streaks of pinks and oranges across the sparsely clouded sky. A light breeze carried on through the nicer days, the sound of leaves shuffling and grass fields tilting in the careful wind, going along peacefully with the wind chimes hanging from the porch, like a faded symphony. Mountains touched the horizon where the sun would set, their peaks dusted with snow year round, a quiet purple haze that was never graced upon, no matter how many times they planned to trek to the top. It was their own kind of paradise, memories and stories chipped in their dinner plates and scribbled onto hallway walls.

It was not a house, but a home.

Teddy continued reading.

 

**_How can he be so careless about death?_ **

_He doesn’t understand how to go through the motions of grieving._

**_Taking someone else’s life is wrong, murder is wrong, death at anyone’s hands is wrong. What doesn’t he understand about that?_ **

_He isn’t allowing himself to feel it. The remorse, the pain, the sorrow._

 

The words spilled from the margins onto the originally blank page dividing two chapters, covered with dark, angry scrawls that made Teddy’s attention abandon Dorian Gray’s story all together.

 

**_I cannot understand how he couldn’t feel the rebound immediately after hurting someone. I know I do. I know I’m tired of it, tired of the sleepless nights and bloody fists and fighting a war that seems to keep twisting deeper into our lives and destroying any sense that we’ll make it out alive._ **

_I have hope. In you, in them, in all of us. That we’ll walk away from this with scars but not alone, not in pain, but with faith. We have to keep our chins up and eyes high, because we need to keep moving forward, always keep moving forward, never glancing back to see our shadows, never forgetting that even if you begin to slow down, there’s always someone to hold you tight and keep pulling you along. I believe we’ll make it out alive, all of us, and maybe we can live happily ever after. So please -  just make it home safely._

 

Late that night, only two chapters shy of the end of the book, Teddy stopped his page in mid-flip. He re-read the lines of writing, fingers tracing over the ink with a faraway feeling of longing, quite like he’d lost something, something he’d never really had, something he would never understand.

 

**_It’s quiet here without you. Wilde talks of art being nothing more than man creates it, but no other books feel quite the same as this does. It’s something more beautiful, I think, and I wonder if it’s because of you. The words fall into place and the story carries on and in every turn of the pages my thoughts are brought back to you, them, James, Lily, Pete, the whole world that shouldn’t seem to matter while I read of someone else’s. I worry too much. When you’re gone, not here, not safe,_ ** **I** **_feel lost. The halls are silent and seem to be filled with shadows. I wish you were here to make this place alive again._ **

**_And I won’t chip any more mugs, by the way. I apologize for the incident with our beloved friend, the ceramic snowman._ **

_(The snowman? Really? You couldn’t have caused damage to our ‘#1 Mom’ mug?)_

_We are kings, dearest Padfoot, and our art is beautiful because it is entirely our own. To lose yourself in a story is one thing, to get lost with someone else is a different tale. So if it means anything, I wander in between the lines of Oscar Wilde’s madness, but I couldn’t feel more safe. I wander with you. I’ll be here, Sirius, I always will. And don’t mind the shadows. Just light more candles, draw open the curtains, play something light and lovely on vinyl, watch the rain drum on the windows and wash the city’s sins away. Because shadows, after all, are only lies we tell ourselves to cope with being alone. (You’re not alone, won’t ever have to be. You’re stuck with me, I solemnly swear it)._

 

That was the end.

His heart beating rapidly in his chest, Teddy flipped to the next page, finding it empty.

No words, no writing, no nothing.

A bit unnerved, he skimmed through the remaining chapters, hopes dropping heavily at the blankness of the margins. There wasn’t even a single drop of ink, and for some odd reason, the story felt— _less_. Teddy felt his pulse in the warmth of his hands, candle flickering shadows across his face, heavily confused, feeling as if there was an odd emptiness dwelling just underneath his heart.

_We are kings_ , his mind went over the words again and again. _I wander with you_.

_Our art is beautiful because it’s our own._  The book was heavy in his hands, and he slowly fell apart as the pieces clicked. _It’s more beautiful - because of you_.  

He thought of the blank pages, the intimate words, the creases and folds that all told a different story within the leather bound spine. It seemed entirely domestic, the talk of mugs, vinyl, rainy days and battlefields. He could hear the steady beat of his heart in his skull. He thought of Remus Lupin. He thought of Sirius Black.

_You’re stuck with me, I solemnly swear it_.

He thought of Harry, the way he would brush his fingertips subconsciously over his forehead when he was asked about _family_.

_Read it, Ted. You’d be surprised of what he has to say._

He thought of his mother.

_Who do you think truly, really knew him?_

(Sirius Black.)

_For when reality takes a turn for the worst. Love, —_

_(Sirius Black.)_

“They were in love,” was all Teddy murmured into the still air, his heartbeat in his head, chills across his skin, moonlight streaming in through the windows and dust falling from the ceiling beams.

And that was it.

It was love, and their love died in a fury of pain and regret on a bloody battlefield.

_(You’re not alone, won’t ever have to be.)_

_Just make it home safely._

_I wish you were here._

_I’ll be here, I always will._

_I always will. I always will. I always will._

 

Teddy didn’t leave his room that night, didn’t come down for breakfast the following morning. The younger children whispered soft worries outside his door until their chattering footsteps faded down the hall, and a pair of singular, firm shoes returned. 

Harry knocked on Teddy’s door gently, entering at the boy’s quiet ‘ _come in_ ’. Teddy sat cross-legged atop his quilts, the book resting closed before him.

“You finished?” Harry asked, slowly sitting on the opposing end of the mattress. Teddy quietly nodded. The willows trees outside his window sighed in the breeze.

“Dorian had a reason to die,” Teddy said. “The evil men are supposed to die, the good men are supposed to live.”

Harry examined the book knowingly. “Not always,” he said softly.

Tears welled in Teddy’s eyes at the sorrow being carved from his chest. “And—and the other book, Sirius’ copy, where is that?”

“Gone,” Harry said. “Maybe the vaults in Azkaban. Maybe the bottom of the sea.”

Teddy gingerly picked up the novel, turning it in his hands. Harry was right—there was no magic humming between the pages anymore. Decades of time had undone it’s spell.

“I want to thank you,” Teddy said suddenly. “For this, and for,” he gestured vaguely to the space around them, “well, _family_.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Teddy,” Harry said. He held out his hand to relinquish Teddy of the weight of the book. “Let’s go join your siblings.”

Teddy glanced down at _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ for one last time, before handing it to Harry and rising off the bed. Harry took it in his palm, and tucked the story away into the pocket of his coat. Downstairs, a plate with a thoughtfully-preserved meal was probably steaming idly for him on the dining room table.  

_Maybe_ , Teddy thought, reiterating his father’s words when bounding down the stairs to greet the chorus of ‘good-morning’s and hugs awaiting him in the kitchen, _we can live happily ever after. Just like you wanted_.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! in sum, remus and sirius both had a copy of remus' favorite book as a form of direct contact during missions for the order/wizarding war troubles. 
> 
> i might write a small sequel of remus/sirius fluff compliant with this story, something a little less sad !!!!!


End file.
